"Mina, we've been friends to you. I'm not ashamed to remind you of it. Janie's a great friend of yours; my wife and I have welcomed you first for her sake, then for your own. Is this the best return you can make us? Consult anybody you like, if you think I'm prejudiced, whether your conduct is honorable, is square." He paused a moment. "Ask Mr Neeld here what he would do. I'm willing to abide by his judgment." Mina was sorely tempted to say, "Ask him then." The situation would thus become so much the more piquant. But Mr Neeld was in such distress--to her sharp eyes a distress so visible--that she did not dare to risk the _coup_. If he were let alone he might keep silence and quiet his conscience by the plea that he had been asked no questions. But she did not venture to face him with a demand for a verdict on her conduct; for her conduct was also his own. "I must judge for myself. Mr Neeld can't help me," she answered. "Uncle has chosen to say he can prove these things. Let him try." She drew herself up with a prim prudish air. "I don't think it's desirable to mix myself up in such very peculiar questions at all, and I don't think it's nice of men to come and cross-question me about them." "Oh, we're not in a girls' school," said Iver, with a touch of irritation hardly suppressed. "We come as men of the world to a sensible woman." "Anybody will tell you I'm not that," interrupted the Imp. "Well, then, to a woman of good feeling, who wishes to be honest and to be true to her friends. Duplay, have you no influence with Madame Zabriska?" "I've spared no effort," replied the Major. "I can't believe that she won't help us in the end." His tone was almost menacing. Mina, remembering how he had terrorized the secret out of her before, and resenting the humiliation of the memory, stiffened her neck once more. "I've nothing to say. You must do as you think best," she said. "You must be made to speak." Iver's threats alarmed where Duplay's only annoyed. He spoke calmly and with weight. "Who can make me speak?" she cried, more angry from her fear. "The law. When we have reached a certain stage in the inquiry, we shall be able to compel you to speak." "I thought you couldn't move a step without me?" Iver was rather set back, but he braved it out. "The difficulties are immensely increased, but they're not insuperable," he said. "I shan't stay to be questioned and bullied. I shall go abroad." Iver looked at the Major; the Major returned his glance; they were both resolute men. "No, you won't go away," declared Iver slowly. The Imp was frightened; she was an ignorant young woman in a land of whose laws she knew nothing. Neeld would have liked to suggest something soothing about the liberty of the individual and the Habeas Corpus Act. But he dared show no sympathy--beyond nodding at her unobserved. The nod told her nothing. "You'll stop me?" Still she tried to sneer defiantly.